The Girl Fund Campaign is specifically for community-led organizations committed to providing opportunities for girls – and, we’ve been doing exactly that for 8 years.

4GIRLS has been pressing for progress since 2010, when we began empowering and inspiring middle school girls to use their voices to speak up for themselves and for others, raise their hands when they see opportunities and point out unfair treatment.

​And, while I know there are many girls we still have to reach with our mission, I’m hopeful because I know we’ve changed the lives of over 500 young women so far.

One young woman’s life in particular comes to mind:

So, over the next 15 days, think how you can #PressforProgress and improve life for the young women in your own life and in your community. Please consider making a gift to 4GIRLS today or on March 8. Or, contact us to find out how you can volunteer and empower middle school girls to view themselves as inherently powerful, valuable and beautiful.

Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate any guests with sponsorships that are purchased after this time; any sponsorships purchased after then will be considered 100% contributions (sponsorship options have been updated to reflect this below). We have added a contribution only button to the top option.

You and your favorite female can join us at our Garden Tea Party – and support 4GIRLS! Fun arts and crafts from 11-noon. Tea and lunch is served at noon. Tickets are $25/each or $35/adult-child pair. Sponsorships are available, ranging from $100-$1,000.

With the help of volunteers with the Santa Clara University OC Alumni Association, 4GIRLS is putting together 200 Care Kits for the homeless on March 10 in Anaheim. Past 4GIRLS participants will give back to our community.

Please join the 4GIRLS Organization for a memorable morning with Gerda Seifer, one of the last remaining Holocaust survivors.

Seifer was 12 years old when the Germans bombed the Polish city of Przemysl – the city where she was born and raised. That event marked the beginning of the harrowing experience Seifer and her family endured for the next few years at the hands of the Nazis. For the last several decades, Seifer, a Long Beach resident, has been sharing her story of survival – “Mine is just one story out of millions,” she has said. “We all have different experiences, but they all end the same way – you either survive or you die.”

The 4GIRLS Organization is humbled and grateful that she will be sharing her story with us and we hope that you can join us for this special event.

Please register by October 27th to reserve your spot. Thank you.

Saturday, November 4, 2017 from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM (PDT)
First Congregational Church of Long Beach
241 Cedar Ave
Long Beach, CA 90802

You and your favorite female can join us for Tea – and benefit 4GIRLS Orange County. Fun arts and crafts from 11-noon. Tea and lunch is served at noon. Tickets are $25/each or $35/adult-child pair. Learn how 4GIRLS has transformed the lives of middle school girls. Bid on fun silent auction items. Questions? Email: kerithdilley@gmail.com

The theme this year for International Women’s Day is, “Be Bold For Change”. Looking up the word “bold”, the internet came back with: adjective: (of a person, action or idea) showing an ability to take risks; confident and courageous.

I started thinking about people whom I admire for taking “risks” and being “confident and courageous” and on a global scale, I thought of Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Peace prize recipient. Anyone who knows her story will agree that she epitomizes the word bold. But I also admire so many people who are not known on a global scale and would not be recognized by any member of the Nobel Peace Prize committee. One person, in particular, that comes to mind is Angie Gomez. Angie is a person I met while at a community outreach event promoting the 4GIRLS Organization. After we met, she decided to support the program by being a mentor and transporting middle school girls from Anaheim to the 4GIRLS workshop in Long Beach. After participating a couple of years in the program, Angie asked me, “When are you going to start this program in Anaheim?” Classes in ‘Diplomacy 101’ kicked in and I asked her, “When are you going to start the program in Anaheim?” Fortunately, Angie boldly accepted the challenge and launched 4GIRLS Orange County this past August!

Eight years ago, I took a bold step and shared an idea that I had with my friends about creating an empowerment workshop for middle school girls. I didn’t know what the workshop would look like exactly, but I knew that I was interested in creating a program where girls could identify themselves as inherently valuable, powerful and beautiful. If it were not for the women who listened and embraced my ‘bold’ thinking back in 2010 and encouraged me to take a risk – the 4GIRLS Organization would not be in existence and we would not have had the opportunity to inspire and empower hundreds of girls to be bold and to make positive changes in their lives.

What I now know is whether you want to implement significant change on a personal level, for your community or for the environment, some degree of boldness will be required. Being bold may seem daunting, but like anything that is worthwhile, one has to practice, practice and practice to become better at it. The Spanish philosopher, Baltasar Gracian wrote, “Put a grain of boldness into everything you do.” Let us start with today – let’s put a grain of boldness in everything that we do and let us see the change that is manifested.

Linda El Awar is a former Google employee who has published a piece of narrative non-fiction that describes her time with the company. Linda hopes to inspire others along their own personal leadership journey through her book, and she has been impressed with our efforts to aide middle school girls.

As a result, 50% of all proceeds from her book will be donated to our organization!

The story appeals to a broad audience, anyone from a young college grad finding him or herself to a Fortune 500 CEO trying to establish culture.

In Linda’s own words, “I understand how awkward and frustrating the middle school years can be on both an academic and personal level. That’s why I want to help middle school ladies embrace this time as a positive opportunity to experience new things and develop confidence for life.”

We are honored to have others such as Linda share our message and support 4GIRLS! If you know of others who love to read, please let them know of this entertaining and educational story. And if you love the story as much as we do, we encourage you to leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads or Barnes & Noble.

After serving girls in Long Beach, CA and the surrounding communities for the past 5 years, 4GIRLS is proud to announce that in 2016 we will be expanding our program! Middle school girls in Santa Ana and Anaheim will now have the opportunity to participate in the 4GIRLS program in Orange County. Due to this exciting growth of our organization and because 4GIRLS will be hosting two workshops in 2016 rather than one, we are in need of your help.

Unlike previous years, we will not be holding our annual fundraising gala in the spring and instead will be holding it in the winter of 2016. As such, we have looked at alternatives for raising the necessary funds to cover all of the expenses associated with our program (you may recall that all 4GIRLS participants attend our workshop and ongoing empowerment activities at no cost to them). We have decided to pursue the GlobalGiving program as the primary means to fund most, if not all, of our 2016 activities.

GlobalGiving is a global crowd funding site that will allow our organization to connect with donors and companies worldwide. In order for us to be granted a platform with GlobalGiving we need to raise enough funds during their upcoming “open challenge” to demonstrate to their organization that we have community support before they give us access to global support.

Your generosity will make a difference to our organization and to the hundreds of middle school girls that we hope to inspire and empower in 2016 with our mission that they are inherently valuable, beautiful and powerful.